Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of
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@crucial said in Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of:
@pakman said in Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of:
- RWC Final 1995. Only time I’ve ever thought, ‘Wouldn’t be so bad if ABs lost this one’;
WTF!!
Ban this man (or Polish girl)
Yup that's a lifetime ban
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Lions Aus 2001 Test 1 in Brisvegas. Was there on a two week modelling contract, scored some tickets, got on the lash, sat next two three random Lions supporters from Ireland called Donal, Donal and Donal. Epic. Just the best rugby vibe - a huge number of international, rugby loving fans, often with their sons, just out on the diesel to have a good time. Little to no aggro, and when the Lions won it just went off. Insane experience, one of my top sporting events of all time.
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@bones said in Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of:
@nzzp said in Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of:
Was there on a two week modelling contract, scored some tickets, got on the lash, sat next two three random
You were a model huh, it's not obvious.
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All Blacks vs Wallabies Christchurch 1990. Sheer wonderment at just 14 and in the Smiths City stand with my Dad and uncle.
Canterbury vs Otago RS game 1994. Latta. Mehrts.
Otago vs Lions 1993 Those star Otago backs and loosies, and their journeymen veteran and misfit tight forwards playing above themselves
Otago vs Boks 1994 Read above
Canterbury NPC final 1997 The Cookie
Time GameEngland vs Samoa RWC 2003, Melbourne. Samoa looked likely for a while and you wouldn't have thought there was a Pom in the house.
All Blacks vs Wallabies, Sydney 2001, 2009 & 2012 Any win in Sydney is gold so the latter two games made up for the heartbreak of the former.
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1995 ABs vs France at Parc des Prince. All our back three scored and Culhane played the best game I ever saw out of him. The French crowd was brilliant, very welcoming and generous. They loved Jonah and Zinny, whose name sounded much better the way they pronounced it. The people around us kept giving us food and there was a very French guy in our row who passed us a huge water canteen that turned out to be full of 50:50 Cointreau and Cognac. I remember thinking that if I had too much more I’d be shitfaced so we made it known we didn’t want to use up all his booze. So he reached under his seat and showed us the spare he was carrying. What a great bunch, even after the ABs gave them a belting.
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Any AB game at the Millennium Stadium - roof open or not. Cardiff is fantastic on match day and the Welsh fans passionate, knowledgeable and great to have a beer with.
All Blacks -England 2018 at Twickenham. Incredibly close game, lion's den of noise but none of the crowd ugliness I've experienced from previous visits. (all credit to the RFU). Fantastic day.
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@williethewaiter said in Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of:
geez i wouldn't be too far off those either that Maori game in the tron was INSANE. (which made the recent game at rotorua even worse)
Yeah, those games were like night and day for the atmosphere and the weather conditions.
npc - close one would be winning the shield at eden park with the terraces packed with drunken students who'd come up on a shitload of buses from the Hilly
I deliberately didn't go to the 1993 RS challenge and was hoping for a change of fortune after being at the 1989 and 1991 games. It worked.
Like @MajorRage I was at the 1997 RS game. Great fun and we appeared in the crowd shot of all the Waikato supporters on the terraces that was in the Sunday News.
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Lions tours and RWC pool games. Always a good percentage of people who are there to have fun and like the best part of rugby.
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@antipodean said in Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of:
Lions tours and RWC pool games. Always a good percentage of people who are there to have fun and like the best part of rugby.
Would love to do a Lions tour to SA.
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@pakman said in Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of:
@antipodean said in Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of:
Lions tours and RWC pool games. Always a good percentage of people who are there to have fun and like the best part of rugby.
Would love to do a Lions tour to SA.
Only one of two nations who obsess about rugby as much as us
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@victor-meldrew said in Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of:
Any AB game at the Millennium Stadium - roof open or not. Cardiff is fantastic on match day and the Welsh fans passionate, knowledgeable and great to have a beer with.
All Blacks -England 2018 at Twickenham. Incredibly close game, lion's den of noise but none of the crowd ugliness I've experienced from previous visits. (all credit to the RFU). Fantastic day.
agreed, did a few trips to cardiff whilst living in london, did cop quite a bit of abuse from the locals "finally got what you deserve!" after the 2007 QF which was a surprise after a few other very enjoyable trips
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@mn5 said in Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of:
Athletic Park vs Australia 1996.
One of those rainy, windy, shitty days that those who don’t live in Wellington believe we have every day. Woken up by the old man to say he had tickets through work, going to the pub with him first ( bear in mind the drinking age was 20 in those days and I’d just turned 19 so he shouted everything ) and then sneaking in more booze to the ground and sitting with a bunch of GCs who had also smuggled lots of booze which was the thing to do in those days.
The ABs also destroyed Australia 43-6 which was nice. An incredible display of rugby in the worst possible conditions. The water that drizzled on us was brown from the rust in the good old Millard stand. To my utter non surprise Athletic Park got demolished a few years later.
Was at that test too, was sitting on top of Millard Stand right at front. Was cold as f*** ,but the best seats I have ever had. Being up that high about 10metres from touchline, was like watching a game on chess board below. Couple of real special things that stuck out among a lot of great things, was watching the angles Iceman ran, and Zinzan setting up backline in a try he scored ,just blew me away.
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Tests this one
Proper terraces managed to squeeze in - the crowd was going apeshit an hour before kick-off. The roar when the players came out for their warm ups was louder than that at the end of the RWC final 11 mths earlier.
I wrote about it at the time. Magic day Taxi down from BA all afternoon at a bar in La Plata. One (Colombian) guy had flown in from Bogota just to see the AB's. Treated like royalty by the Argie fans (we were the only Kiwi's in the stand as weren't part of a tour party). Must've had to pose for 50-60 photos with locals. Gave away most of my AB gear.
Next day flew out to Santiago and when the airport staff saw we were Kiwi's they waved us through immigration and security into the VIP lane.
Plenty of great NPC games sliding down the bank at Onewa Domain. Great venue to get close to the action Probably smacking Canterbury in the 94 semi
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@crazy-horse said in Best Rugby Crowd you've been a part of:
I always look back at the crowds for the 80s Canterbury Shield era with fondness. I was a teenager at the time and just getting into rugby. Some of the bigger challenges had the embankment packed and spilling out on to the field. There was a real nervous energy at the time. Good times.
Great days!!!
I recall around that time (at a test match) prior to the game, Keith Quinn appeared in a commentary position, high above the bank.
As you would (in that era, Ollie), the crowd began singing KQTIUTA doo dah doo dah. A sound man behind Keith conducted the crowd - urging them to sing louder. Which they/we did.
It was a backfire! They were making a short documentary on how feral the Lancaster Park crowd is. And the bastards doctored the sound so you couldn't make out the lyrics when they played it on TV!
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I've been to a few but pretty much any Lions match. Provincial, or test, from when I was a kid, to getting on the piss with the fans later in life.
Those guys travel half way around the world to follow their team and support them whole heartedly, even if they lose. They come for the party more than the match quite often I think, and it makes for a really passionate but cordial atmosphere. The Brit sense of humour with the banter also a lot of fun.
I ended up drinking for hours on a flight back to HKG (I was a passenger) with a bunch of them, one of whom lived minutes from my in laws in Wales and knew my FiL. 2005. Was just a party at the back of the plane. Nobody got stroppy, just good rugby banter (and a lot of beer). May have all been on best behaviour because they knew who I was but I doubt it.
